Breeders, owners, and caregivers of animals which can be companions, such as dogs, cats, horses, farm, food, or zoo animals, and wildlife, have a need to understand their physical and biological attributes, genetic makeup, heritable disease, and disorder background, and longevity.
Substantial investments in time, effort and financial resources are made by the breeders, owners, and caregivers of these animals, particularly purebred animals, to characterize their health state and predict their morbidity, mortality and longevity. Resources are separately directed to obtaining information about their genetic background. There is also a need to conduct periodic comprehensive health assessments of animals.
The probability that an individual animal will develop a specific health-related condition in its lifetime is a product of complex interactions between its genetic makeup, environmental influences including diet, and agents of disease (e.g., chemical, physical, or biological) that it encounters. Perhaps the best indicator of overall health of an individual animal or breed is longevity.
The physical attributes, and other descriptive and health assessment information is generally termed in this application as the phenotypic information. Genetic disorder information is termed in this application as the genotypic information. Generally, these are two distinct and differing sets of information.
Phenotype Data
The physical descriptive and health assessment profiles include characteristics such as the physiological, pathological, endocrinological, hematological, epidemiological, behavioral, and immunological data from parameters such as phenotype, breed, lifespan, health history, and presence of infectious diseases and metabolic disorders. All of this is part of the phenotypic information. A health assessment profile of an animal typically relates to a particular subject of the group, as opposed to the group of animals as a whole. Generally, the phenotype is the genetic nature of an organism that is revealed by visible characteristics or measurable performance, in contradistinction to the genotype, which may not be evident without a breeding test or genetic map.
Laboratories having a central database processing resource (CDPR) as well as in-office laboratory equipment at veterinary hospitals or clinics are used for analyzing blood and other biological samples of a subject animal. This is a system for obtaining the phenotypic information. Communication systems are known for connecting these laboratories with veterinary clinics through a telephone and/or fax connection on an automated basis. These systems permit the veterinarian, animal hospital, or other authorized person (collectively or individually termed the “remote user”) to receive the health assessment profile and basic descriptive identifying data, namely phenotypic information, of a subject animal from the CDPR. Until recently, it was not possible for the remote user to access the CDPR directly to obtain this phenotypic information of a subject animal.
It is known for the breeder and/or owner of animals, such as purebred companions in the nature of dogs, cats, and horses, or animals of mixed breeding, to obtain health assessments of their animals. The owners obtain these data by submitting blood or other body fluid and tissue samples of their animals, usually through a veterinarian or veterinary clinic, to a laboratory for analysis of the biological, physiological, or pathological condition, namely the physical health of the animal. These data are then reported to the owner through the veterinarian or veterinary clinic. The data also can be stored on the CDPR of the laboratory. Additionally, for each subject animal, the phenotypic data can be stored on a computer storage system at the veterinary clinic or in a computer storage system of the owner and/or breeder. The retrieval of the data can be electronically, by voice, hard copy, or fax as required.
Seeking, obtaining and storing this phenotypic information is driven by the needs of the animal breeder, owner or the agent of the owner and the animal's healthcare provider. This information is of a nature that it is the primary information sought to resolve the clinical, diagnostic, management, and therapeutic needs of an animal subject when the animal is in need of periodic wellness examination, is ill, or is to be restored to a well condition. These data are the essential information resorted to by the clinician in the care of animals.
Genotype Data
The genotypic information relates to genetic mapping, genetic background, and genetic screening databases. This includes data obtained from the pedigree, family history, heritable physical characteristics, genetic screening tests, DNA testing, genomic mapping, and related laboratory assessment of the gene product for known or suspected congenital and heritable traits. In this application, the term “gene product” means the specific phenotypic characteristic(s) resulting from the expression of the genotype, and may include certain specific laboratory test data.
This second aspect of data associated with the animals is the genetic or genotype data or information. These data are typically used to estimate the presence and prevalence of disease or disorder among different breeds or kinds of animals. These data are currently available on some select clinical research databases, in book form, hard copy, or in genetic disease registries.
When retained in a genetic disease registry, the data typically list only those animals that are not affected with or carrying the heritable trait in question. The abnormal or non-normal conditions (affected with or carriers of the heritable trait) are normally the subject of confidential knowledge of a breeder and/or owner, and not the subject of a generally accessible database. This is retained as confidential by the owners either for financial reasons, risk reasons, legal liability reasons, or personal reasons.
The genotypic information typically relates to individual animals, or a group or class of animals and is most often stored manually in a non-CDPR facility. It is not typically stored by veterinarians in a clinical setting, since the genotypic data is a specialist form of data used mainly for cataloging and research of diseases and disorders among animals. It is also not generally available for access to assist in the clinical analysis, diagnosis, and therapeutic management of animals.
This genotypic information, namely the physical characteristics and genetic makeup (pedigree), heritable disorder history, and related health history of animals in the group is usually manually recorded by breeders, owners, and researchers of companion and other valued animals. The genetic constitution of an organism includes genes without visible effects as well as those revealed by the phenotype. It may refer to all the genes or to a single pair of alleles. The genotypic information is transmitted manually to and from persons or local and national genotypic databases maintained for specific disorders, and designed to foster research into diseases and disorders, rather than being readily accessible to users for clinical purposes in the manner of phenotypic data on a CDPR.
Some of the genetic data are available on registries related to specific diseases or disorders, for instance, hip dysplasia, eye conditions, thyroid conditions, and blood conditions. Such disease-specific registries are usually set up either by identifying affected animal breeds, or are indexed by disease or disorder. The genetic information databases are generally closed (kept confidential), but in some cases may be open to researchers or members of groups, associations, and clubs.
Failings of the Existing Systems
To promote better health among animals, which can be animal companions, sport animals, farm animals, and the like, such as canine, feline, equine, bovine, porcine, caprine, ovine, and zoo animals or wildlife, it is important to secure accessible genotypic or genetic information databases. It is also important to be able to relate these genotypic databases to the health assessment profiles or phenotypic databases of particular subject animals.
Many purebred animals are valuable, and so it is important to obtain their descriptive phenotypic information, and periodic health assessment data throughout their lives, and also to incorporate their genotypic information in order to promote and maintain effective high quality and healthy breeding stock, and maximize their lifespan. The phenotype data for an animal include the health assessment profile, breed, and the physical characteristics of the animal. The genotype data include the genetic map, pedigree, family history, genetic screening tests, and disorder and disease characteristics of a particular animal, animal family, line, or group of animals.
There is a need to develop these data in a cumulative, comprehensive, and dynamic system of database management to thereby enhance the health predictability, and longevity of animals.
This type of comprehensive and cumulative database on individual or groups of animals needs to be preserved and shared locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. A mechanism to do this is presently not known due to the various constraints surrounding each of the two types of databases. The phenotype database storage, use, and access is fashioned, formed and structured for use by clinical laboratories and veterinarians. The genotype information is fashioned and structured generally for clinical research and breeder/owner uses as opposed to clinical medical uses.
It is not known to store and/or present phenotypic information and genotypic information as a comprehensive and cumulative assessment of individual animal subjects, families of subjects, breeds of subjects, or species of animals in a computerized format which is available through computer networking to authorized remote users.
Accordingly, there is a need to relate different databases from animals, animal groups or species, in a manner to permit enhancement of the animal kingdom for breeding and growth in a healthy manner with a minimum of disease (reduced morbidity and mortality) and increased longevity.
As the above demonstrates, there is a need for a new database management bioinformatics scheme and relational database, together with computerized networks that manage, analyze, and/or integrate comprehensive and cumulative animal health assessment data and genetic identifier, genomic mapping, and genetic assessment data A comprehensive approach to animal health and genetic selection or management of animals, and their clinical care is the subject of the present invention.
Current laboratory and research systems and computerization have not achieved this, and nor have communication protocols been used effectively in this technological area to facilitate such a relationship or relational bioinformatics database system for management and dissemination of this comprehensive and cumulative information.